A Cumbrian MP has denounced the government’s “insufficient” second home reform plans.
On the floor of the House of Commons yesterday, Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron denounced the reforms to improve housing issues caused as a result of second home ownership laid out in the Queen’s speech.
Speaking to the House, Mr Farron stated that the Government’s proposed reforms to tackle second homeownership “is not comprehensive and will leave communities hollow as people are unable to stay here and raise a family”.
Tim acknowledged that the government does plan to double council tax on second homes which are left empty for the whole year but that this leaves loopholes for those properties bought as an investment to let out as holiday homes: “It means that the small business will pay no council tax and no business rates either, and that people in Kendal, Penrith, Appleby and Ambleside who are going to food banks are subsidising wealthy people with second, third and fourth homes.”
Continuing, he discussed the issue of planning for ‘affordable homes’ and the reality that “these homes ‘are not in fact affordable”.
“We talk about building more houses, but the problem in areas such as mine is that while those who build houses will sell them, we are building for demand and not for need, and it is time to build for need,” he said.
“Earlier today, I was talking to some of my local councillors—Jenny Boak, Pete Endsor and Sue Sanderson, who represent Grange & Cartmel. Just outside Cartmel, in Haggs Lane, 39 properties are to be built, only eight of them affordable. Why? Because the Government do not give planning authorities the power to say to developers, ‘Get knotted unless you are going to build for local people and families and make those places affordable.’
“So I am angry, not just on behalf of my community but on behalf of communities across rural areas of our great country, that there is so little, if anything at all, for us in this Queen’s Speech.”
Speaking afterwards, Mr Farron said: “I am deeply concerned about the proposals contained in the Queen’s speech. To me, it appears to be all style and no substance with no attention to the calls for detail that has been put to the government when discussing these issues time and time again.”
